Recommendations to Legislature for Use of ARPA Funds to Help TX Infants and Toddlers

As part of the agenda for its third special session, the Texas Legislature is developing plans to use federal funds provided by Congress through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

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In the following memo, Texans Care for Children, TexProtects, Children at Risk, and United Ways of Texas outline recommendations to the Legislature for using a portion of those funds to support Texas infants and toddlers during the critical period of early childhood brain development. The four organizations spearhead the Texas Prenatal to Three Collaborative.

Specifically, the organizations have six recommendations for the Legislature, which are described in greater detail in our memo:

Strengthening the Essential Child Care Workforce

1. Texas should dedicate sufficient resources from ARPA State Fiscal relief funds to provide premium pay to child care educators through wage increases, bonuses or stipends.

2. Texas should dedicate resources from ARPA State Fiscal relief funds to support the development of new child care businesses in child care deserts.

Promoting Healthy Mothers and Babies

3. Texas should use $10.5 million from ARPA State Fiscal relief funds to invest on expansion of the Family Connects program.

4. Texas should provide one-time funds for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium to leverage its existing infrastructure and build on the Child Psychiatric Access Network to serve pregnant women and new mothers facing maternal mental health challenges. Key stakeholders at the Consortium have indicated $31 million is needed for this scale-up.

Technology Upgrades and System Efficiencies for Texas 211 and State Systems that Help Families with Children Find and Enroll in Services Such as Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, and Healthy Texas Women

5. Texas should use $750,000 from ARPA State Fiscal relief funds to support 211 call centers with temporary, additional staffing and operational needs ($250,000) and to make system-wide technology upgrades to the 211 Texas network ($500,000).

6. Texas should allocate one-time funds for capital enhancements and technology updates needed to upgrade key systems — such as Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System (TIERS) and YourTexasBenefits.com — used by HHSC and families to apply for programs like Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, and Healthy Texas Women. HHSC would be in the best position to offer a dollar amount for these technology upgrades.